Stephen E. Arnold: The Honk

The Times does mention that reputable organizations including the Huffington Post, The Atlantic and Business Insider all use branded content. (In fact The Atlantic apologized for one instance of sponsored content from the Church of Scientology in January). The Times suggests the reason for this shift in advertising technique below,

“Publishers are largely being driven to support the use of sponsored content because of fewer people clicking on banner ads, the abundance of advertising space and other factors make it more difficult to make money from traditional online advertising. As advertising technology becomes more sophisticated, ads can be bought and sold at cheaper rates across the Web. Often they are ignored by the very customers advertisers are trying to reach.”